verb
thresh
THRESH/θreʃ/
Separate grain from husks or stalks by beating.
Farmers thresh the harvested wheat to separate grain from stalks.
Etymology
Old English þrescan described separating grain by trampling or beating. The concrete image is of people or oxen treading out wheat; thresh retains the agricultural sense of releasing grain from the harvested plant.
In context
One of the important things that a barn was for in this time period was to thresh your wheat so you're trying to to take the the grain out of the head
More examples
- They threshed the barley by hand, beating it with wooden flails.
- This machine cuts and threshes the wheat in one pass.
- After threshing the grain, we sifted out the remaining debris.
Forms
thresh · threshes · threshed · threshing
thresher noun — A person or machine that separates grain.